Columns on Ethics, Leadership and Life by Gael O’Brien

Tag Archives: Penn State University Beta Theta Pi

Thanksgiving invites our being more aware of others’ impact on us. How it feels to be seen, heard and valued for who we are. When we think about gratitude, it is people who generally first come to mind: those who have made a positive difference in our lives.

Events this year have shown what happens when our emotional intelligence is undeveloped or just shut down. When we are blind to our impact on others and they become merely a means to an end that works for us. We lose touch with our own humanity and ignore the essential elements of dignity in our treatment of others.

Two examples:

It was excruciating to read the November (2017) Atlantic Magazine’s “A Death at Penn State” about the hazing and death of sophomore Tim Piazza. To protect themselves and their Beta Theta Pi fraternity, his 16 fraternity brothers didn’t call 911 for 12 hours while he lay in pain and semi consciousness after falling head-first down a flight of stairs. The irony was that for security reasons the fraternity house had security cameras throughout, which is how the picture emerged of Tim’s fall and the next 12 hours. And yet there was still blindness.

For fraternity brothers who rationalize they are following a manly tradition, Penn State and any university whose “zero tolerance” is empty, alumni who shirk responsibility and national fraternity organizations who could control the harm and don’t, the unseeing eye leads to sexual assaults, traumatic injuries and student deaths.

The irony of the blind eye and myopic self-interest is that it makes us blind to ourselves and anything we think we stand for.

The current wave of powerful and prominent men — movie producers, actors, comedians, journalists, talk show hosts, executives and others — who’ve been blind to whether their serial sexual behavior toward those with little power was welcome — are learning it wasn’t.

Forced silence out of fear of reprisals has given way to women and men coming forward in the wake of sexual harassment moving out of the shadows of rumor. From ongoing revelations of sexual harassment at Fox News Division, to movie producer Harvey Weinstein last month and more than 30 other leaders in their fields since, distinctions between mutual consent and abuse of the power have made headlines.

Yesterday, (11/21/17) journalist and former talk show host Charlie Rose was fired from his roles at CBS, PBS and Bloomberg TV. The reason? Inquiries into the sexual misconduct allegations made by former employees and others associated with his work. In talking to a friend, we expressed a mutual sense of betrayal over the two sides of Charlie Rose. The person on TV who was so gifted at bringing out the essence of whomever he interviewed with a seeming stellar emotional intelligence. And how he acted when the camera wasn’t rolling, apparently so disconnected from himself; blind to the effect his unwanted attentions had on others.

Ironically, last week Rose interviewed columnist David Brooks about Brooks’ take on sexual harassment. Brooks talks about the harasser’s “inability to put yourself in the mind of the person you are pushing yourself all over. It is sort of humanistic blindness to another human being’s experience.”

So where does Thanksgiving this week come in?

In our digital world where we are looking to discoveries in artificial intelligence to advance productivity and innovation, we are still grappling with what emotional intelligence means in leadership — both leadership of ourselves and the impact we have on others. It is important to talk about this with people we trust to better understand ourselves and them.

The hope of Thanksgiving is that it can be a pause point.

Either enjoying our own company or surrounded by family or friends, it offers a time to focus on our heart, not our head. To consciously take off any blinders that stop us from seeing our humanity and its connection to everyone else’s. It is a time to think about our impact on others and the impact we’d most want to have.

And in the midst of filling our plate with delicious food, to give more thought to how to feed our souls.

Gael O’Brien is an executive coach and presenter focused on building leadership, trust, and reputation. She publishes TheWeek in Ethics and is a Business Ethics Magazine columnist. Gael is an Kallman Executive Fellow, Hoffman Center for Business Ethics at Bentley University and a Senior Fellow Social Innovation, the Lewis Institute, Babson College.